Wednesday, 5 May 2010

Please click * (footnote before the videos) on each photograph to see the amazing detail, and you will see why, for me, Spring is the most marvellous season. I was born in the month of April, and each year I am filled with Spring Fever. Having not one, but, two ponds here at Barleycorn, I am fortunate to be able to observe each stage in the life-cycle of the common frog at close quarters.

Taddies With Gills

Each Spring I marvel at this miraculous spectacle of Nature with renewed enthusiasm. It matters not that I have witnessed it for each of the past twenty years since my Hubbie first created the ponds...for every Spring is the only Spring.

Tadpoles Swimming Freely

With my camera set to video mode, I went out each day and recorded the changes in their development, from spawn to tadpole. You can watch the results in the first little video, Barleycorn Taddies, at the end of this post and be filled with wonder at the metamorphosis.

Female Blackbird Gathering Nesting Material

As well as the frenzy of activity in the ponds, beginning each day with the Frog Chorus, we have also had the pleasure of being awakened by the Dawn Chorus, and a wonderful serenading Song Thrush...both of which are better than any alarm clock at enticing me out of bed. Because we have a lot of chaff left over from last year's spent flower stems, the usual suspects have been gathering their nesting material.

Blackbird's Nest

Each Autumn, I leave a crown of growth around my plants to protect them from severe frosts and to offer nesting material for the birds in Spring. This year, we have watched three pairs of Blackbirds, a Thrush, three pairs of Jackdaws and Titmice gathering chaff, moss, wool and twigs to make their nests.

Goldfinches And A Siskin

Nuts and seeds sustain the birds when they are feverishly engaged in building their nests. In the second video, Billing And Cooing, you will see a female blackbird using her beak to wrestle and tug chaff from the earth, for a whole day, and persevere until her beak could support no more strands, before flying off to a nearby Pine, where she began to weave her magic.

Siskin On A Garden Light

I do not use the word 'magic' lightly, to describe the truly wonderful creation of a bird's nest, for their intricacy never ceases to amaze me, knowing that, even with the use of a pair of hands, my effort would be a poor attempt. Though we found the nest lying on the ground the next day, the Blackbird began the marathon all over again, this time building the nest in a more sheltered Pine.

Double-Petalled Daffodil

Whenever our daffodils burst forth, I am always reminded of the exuberant song from the Mikado...# The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring, Tra La #... because they are further confirmation that Spring has arrived at last at Barleycorn. Another sign is the first appearance of 'our' Swallows, newly returned from their long trip from Africa to their nests in the Barn. This year we are fortunate to have three returning pairs.

Naturalised Daffodils

With the Swallows playing Spitfires, zooming in and out of the Barn from dawn to dusk each day, the car is once again sporting a dustsheet for the duration of our Barn visitors' sojourn. Further evidence of Spring is the fact that my log-piles have dwindled as pairs of Jackdaws replenished their nests in the Barn's three chimneys.

Orange-Centred Daffodil

There are five Dandelion plants in full bloom at the moment, given house-room in our garden so that Queen Bumble bees have sustenance when they crawl out of their underground hideaways each Spring... for our garden is very much one designed to encourage wildlife to take up residence.

Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly On Scilla

Small Tortoiseshell and Large White butterflies overwinter in the Barn. Several times over the years I have managed to rescue a few from cobwebs to enable them to fly off and begin their life-cycle. In the third video, Flowering At Barleycorn, you will see Taz, my constant companion, as I took the footage. Though our garden is very much in the early stages of Spring, with many joys still to unfold as the season progresses, I already feel I am bursting with joy, blessed with the wonder and majesty of it all and feeling positive about what the garden means in terms of conservation...reminding me we are the stewards of the earth.xxxxxxx

Don't forget to turn up the volume to enjoy the musical accompaniment and the sounds of Nature in the background. Enjoy!xxxxxxx

Click * If you decide to click to enlarge a photo, you can then click on a corner and the photo will open up to the size of the whole page...and then you will see everything in glorious detail!

The music accompanying Barleycorn Taddies is Delibes' Pizzicati.

The music accompanying Billing And Cooing is Kriesler's Schon Rosmarin.

The music accompanying Flowering At Barleycorn is Grieg's To The Spring, from his Lyric Pieces.

Dear Wildlife Gardener.....spring has sprung. New life has come to your garden, to set up home with you for a little while.

The doves and mummy blackbird are just so beautiful. Birds are so very patient. We could learn a lot from them. I remember many years ago an elderly gent telling me that 'birds sing for the sheer joy of living' I am not sure that is true but I like to think so.

Tadpoles have not arrived in my pond yet. They came late last year due to very cold weather, it looks like the same thing is going to happen again.

Your cat is just so sweet. I felt I wanted to pick him up and sit with him for a while.

The doves preened each other's feathers, which was sweet...but, I just missed capturing it :)

That female blackbird spent a whole day building her nest...while the male looked on! Even when she was bathing he just sat watching her! And when the nest was blown down...I could have wept...but, she just started all over again and now she has eggs :)

Great photos ! even if the Tadpoles are too weird for me... You are much braver than me !But I love the birds and their nests.

I have several Quail families on my land that have hatched their eggs and darling tiny babies are running around. One nest that is in my side yard and haven't hatched yet and until the babies are big enough. . . the house painters will have to wait.

Love the tadpoles so advanced our lot are just appearing, the female blackbirds are the most industrious nest builders, ours has ransacked every bit of nest material it could find, while the male looked on in awe.

Love the tadpoles. When I was a kid, I would collect the eggs and put them in a jar of pond water. Would watch them hatch, and watch them grow. When they were ready to leave the water, I would take them back to the pond. Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.

The photos and the videos give a fair idea of the amount of patience that would have been required to make this marvellous post. Its your skill, dear W.G, that makes people appreciate beauty in creatures which are conventionally not perceived as pretty, like tadpoles. I got my lesson - a true lover of nature hsould find the tadpoles as beautiful as, say, butterflies:-)

The ponds of Barleycorn are teeming with life. So lovely to see all the wildlife busy enjoying the warmer weather.

I have always been facinated by birds nests. It amazes me the intricacy of their design and the vast array of materials they find. I always leave out lint from the laundry out for them. I think the funniest thing I have seen birds nest made from is cat hair. There was no mistaking that orange hair from our ginger cat.

About Me

In 1990, as we were driving through a little village, I noticed a quaint old barn with a corrugated roof, and a newly-built house adjacent to it. They were standing on a large plot of land, full of pernicious weeds - a corner of a farmer's field, in fact. Then we saw the "For Sale" sign. Four months later we moved in and decided to create a garden for wildlife.
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